Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Camping is In-Tents!

Nyuk nyuk... Nope, I didn't make that title up, although I wish I had. Check out this cute pic I found:

Yup, that's right, the Goings clan is going camping this weekend. For four days, babeee!! That's one of the reasons why I haven't blogged lately. I've got a shite-load of... shite to do. I mean, my gawd. It's like planning an African safari.

ACK! You think I'm kidding. We'll be in the "rough" for four days. Six people. One dog. One big PITA. LOL No, really, we'll have a lot of fun, it's just a lot of planning.

And not just our family is going. Our good friends the Howlands will be joining us, as well as the Siglers, the Farnsworths, and many other random folk. Mostly a few family members and significant others. It's gonna be a B~L~A~S~T!! Where are we going? Why, remember that trek to Lost Lake I told you about a few weeks ago? We decided we wanted to actually stay longer than a few hours. So we're going to camp out!

Lost Lake is aptly named. This place is the epitome of "out-of-the-way." If you don't know where you're going (ie, print out a freakin' map), you WILL get lost. I'm not sure if that's why they named it such or not. But I'm betting YES. LOL

But this is going to be FUN! I haven't been camping as often as my DH, and this doesn't even "count" as roughing-it, as there is a convenient store nearby. This is more "car camping." Get out of your car, set up your tent. Which is good, because I always seem to break a limb whenever I go hiking... Don't ask.

So, what does this mean for Becka's Babble? It means I won't be around to blog this weekend. :( But hopefully next week, I'll have some great pics and stories to share. If I think of a Hottie between now and this evening, I'll post him. Otherwise, you'll just have to be satisfied with Matt Damon until I get back. ;)

11 Comments:

What the hell, let's have a contest on Becka's Babble! Write your best camping story here in the comments section, and the "best" story (as chosen by ME), will win a copy of my latest eBook, PROMISE ME FOREVER! :D

The only thing I can remember from my childhood camping days with the family, is skinny dipping in the canal. Thankfully I was young and only my mom and aunt were with us kids. And also, one of my aunts always had to dress up, makeup and the like, even though we were in the desert and it was hot.

When I was little we used to go camping at the buffalo river every year. My grandfather had property along the banks (of course that all changed when the government decided to take it for protection purposes. Pencil necks) so anyway. I was about eight and the place we always camped there was a wolf den across the river and up the bluff. Every night they howled us to sleep and in the mornings we’d watch them get up and move around. There were bear wallows under wild plum trees in the woods. It was the perfect place for being alone in the wilderness.

One night we were sleeping and there was a noise outside the tent. Now we’d seen evidence of bear, we’d seen the wolves and we knew coyotes and snakes were in abundance all around us. So when the noise outside the tent began I wasn’t overly worried. The whole they wont hurt you, you don’t hurt them mentality. (I still believe this true to this day) So I sat up and I looked at my dad who was standing by the mesh window looking outside. I crawled to his side and asked “Whatcha lookin’ at Daddy?”He pressed a finger to my lips and picked me up to look outside. There was the MOST BEAUTIFUL cougar I’d ever seen out there. This thing was HUGE. He was just calmly sniffing around the tent, the fire, etc then he went down to the river to get a drink and came back, passing right by us and disappearing into the woods.

It was the first time I’d ever seen a mountain lion. It wasn’t the last but the first time is always a fabulous memory. There aren’t as many big cats or bears left down there. Wolves are an even bigger rarity but those memories will always be close to my heart.

OK, here's my camping story. Imagine a family of 6, which includes mom, dad, and four girls between the ages of 7 and 17, stuck in one good sized tent together. Our sleeping bags were lined up edge to edge across the back of the tent, with the oldest sister on the outside.

In the middle of the night, we hear a lot of banging and crashing. No biggie, we figured, just a racoon trying to get into the trash can. However, just about then, one side of the tent bulged WAY inward, and something large and heavy sat on sis, who by this time is screaming her head off. Dad, our hero, who never wakes up well anyway, is stumbling around in his boxers, tripping over multiple hysterical females, trying to locate a flashlight. When at at last he does, he fumbles his way to the door, only to find not only a raccoon, but a bear, fighting ovr the trash can! It was the bear who had tripped over a tent stake and sat on sis! Dad found some pots and pans, and made enough noise to scare off the critters, but no one slept much more that night. Except for the youngest sister. She slept through the entire thing!

Camping stories, eh? Let me see, I got a million of them, since we spent a good portion of my youth at the lake.

I was the baby you saw in the playpen with the towel over the top, to that girl you saw out in the swimming area, the only kid with her lifejacket on, because my dad has issues with water (go figure, since he was in the Navy), to the lobster teenager who was forced to sit under a makeshift canopy at the lake because I was so badly sunburned.

But probably my favorite camping story came from my dad. I was about 19 or 20, and we had all come back up to the campsite for the evening, the adults were drinking beer and wine coolers, while the teenaged and almost-teenaged kids were playing cards.

My dad asked me if I wanted a wine cooler. I shrugged and said "sure," after all, there was something kinda cool about your dad offering you alcohol for the first time.

Anyway, he handed me a bottle, and I stood there, struggling to get the lid off. My dad just snorted at me, and grabbed the bottle out of my hand.

"Don't marry anyone who won't open your bottles for you," he said as he popped it open and handed it back to me.

I stared at him like a deer in headlights, thinking 'Lord, is he already tanked?'

Now, almost 15 years and 8 years of a marriage later, I realized I did exactly what my daddy said. I married someone who opens my bottles for me.

Looking back, I think it was the best advice he could have given me. The worst guys I ever dated wouldn't open my bottles, or doors, or give me their chair. My husband, however, does do all these things, and tons more.

So even though it was terribly silly sounding, it really was the best advice he could have given me.

This is so funny cause I just got done spending a night out camping. That's all these joints will take anymore. lol My sister-in-law said she had an air mattress for me. I'm thinking little twin size. Nope. It's a full size air mattress that is about 2 and 1/2 feet high. It's about 2 am and everyone is heading for bed after a night of fishing and hanging around the campfire. I go to get on the bed, trying to shift myself to get in the middle and the mattress throws me off. I start giggling, my daughter starts laughing and my brother has to see if I'm alright. It had lost a little air and so I was cradled in the middle. Which is ok, until I had to go to the bathroom. I woke up, really having to go and had to struggle for about two minutes to get out of the damn thing. Then I asked my daughter where the flashlight was. She muttered something and waved her arm kinda, sorta and I just couldn't look. I had to GO! So I got up and headed out of the tent and it's pitch black. No moon to speak of and the light I have to guide me is clear by the restroom which is by the lake, which is it seems miles away now. I make the trip with no tripping over the mole tunnels or gopher holes and have a panic attack that it will be locked. lol It wasn't. Such blessed relief. Now I have to go back. Everything looks so much darker now that the light is behind me. I survived the return trip with all limbs whole. I climb back on the mattress, oh such fun and fall back to sleep. Then I was kinda waking up, you know the feeling, of course I had to go to the bathroom again, but it wasn't as urgent. I'm laying there trying to stay asleep and a trucker blew a tire on the interstate across the lake. So now I'm WIDE awake and make the trip to the restroom. As I'm walking back, I'm admiring the mist on the lake and decide to take my shower. Came back to the camp afterwards and got my orange juice and just watched and listen to the world wake up. It was so beautiful, it even inspired a poem for me.

I have't been camping since I was about 5 so that's a few moons ago unfortunately.

But I do have an alternative! My grandparent live in the Colorado Rockies near Vale so being up there for a visit when I was younger was almost like camp but with a few more creature comforts!Now there's a few more specialty shop and a few name brand stores but a half hour trip up the mountain and you're surrounded by nature.On my last visit to see them, my grandfather, a neighbor and her kids, and I went up Mt. Montazuma (I kid you not that's it's name) and while we were there we went a lil wild going up and all around the mountain. My Grandma couldn't be with us at the time because her hip was acting up, so I got it in my head to pick some flowers for her so she'd have the experience of almost being there to see some of the summer beauty.

Well, in my gathering, I went close to a stream, ya, you guessed it, I fell in. Only to my knees mind you, but it was So Cold, but refreshing feeling too. Luckily it was warm enough that it didn't bother me and we stayed a while longer going up the mountain more too. The sky was so blue that day and we were close to one of the top ridges that you could almost reach out and touch a cloud, we were that high up. It's one of my best memories to this day. Stephanie

One of my best times camping was up in Glacier National park. I can't remember who all was on that trip, but I know for certain that one of the Howland's was there.

Why? Because of this little story. We were all sitting around the fire the first night, the night before hiking 7 miles uphill into the backwoods. My uncle in law made us dinner, and for some reason we had a hot pepper. K didn't think it would be that hot, so he ate it. He quickly had tears streaming down his face. Then he was pouring water down his throat, and racing to the water faucet to get more and more water. Of course, we all know water is not what works for hot peppers, but when you're camping, the options are limited. It probably took 1/2 hour for him to feel any better, while the rest of us struggled to contain our laughter. Poor guy.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We had a crazy hard, beautiful hike to the campsite. An awesome meal made with dehydrated food. Then we got rained on all night, so our hike back was more difficult because all of our things were soaking wet. Thankfully it was downhill. When I finished that hike, I really felt like I had accomplished something, it was amazing!

Good Lord, I think my family would have been screaming/crying/hysterical if a bear sat on one of us through the tent. YIKES!!! That's one of those experiences that makes a little one seriously loathe camping. I can only imagine my kidlets freaking out about bears in any subsequent camping trips. ACK!

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